


Aristotle's Theory of Angry Birds

by EnsignAdano



Category: Secret History - Donna Tartt
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angry Birds, Canon Compliant, Crack, Fluff, Francis' Country House, Games, Gen, Humor, well as canon compliant as it can be considering it's a modern au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:00:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22322974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnsignAdano/pseuds/EnsignAdano
Summary: Henry, along with the rest of the Greek class, discover a talent he never knew he had.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25





	Aristotle's Theory of Angry Birds

It was a lazy autumn afternoon in Francis' country house. The leaves outside swirled in the breeze, a uniform sheet of gray covered the sky, and a thick languor had settled over the six of us. Bunny had long since abandoned his Greek homework and was playing Angry Birds on his iPhone XR with the volume turned all the way up, presumably intentionally, in an effort to annoy the rest of us with the caws and the chirps and the sounds of pigs being destroyed. And, although we were trying very hard not to show it, it was working.

Finally, after a while of this, Camilla burst out, “Oh my _god_ , Bunny, _please_ will you stop playing that game?”

Henry, who had been completely absorbed in his work up until now, glanced up with mild interest. “That’s where that noise has been coming from?”

“Yeah,” said Charles. “Angry Birds.”

Henry looked out through the huge picture window onto the lawn. “I don’t see any birds outside,” he said.

Charles rolled his eyes. “No. The _game_ Angry Birds. Which I have _no idea_ why Bunny is still playing, since it’s not 2012 anymore…”

Bunny grinned, his eyes still fixed on his phone.

“But how can birds be angry?” Henry asked. “Didn’t Aristotle say in his _Peri Psyche_ that what sets us apart from animals is that, while they have some measure of a soul in the nutritive and sensitive sense, we alone have the intellectual soul that gives us the capability for emotion and—”

“Oh my god, Henry,” Bunny exclaimed, “stop taking everything so literally, willya?! Look, if you think you’re so much better than this game—“ he thrust the phone into Henry’s hands—“why don’t you try it yourself?”

Henry poked at the phone for a bit, unfamiliarly, unsure of himself. While the rest of us each had phones and, like any other person, used them regularly—texting each other about assignments, downloading books, and, in Bunny’s case, playing obnoxious mobile games from 2012—Henry refused to get one out of pure principle. In fact, before that moment, I don’t think he’d ever held one at all.

He swiped around with his finger, his brow furrowed, before finally figuring out how to pull back the Angry Bird in question. “Like that?” he asked Bunny, who nodded, his expression still smug. He fiddled around with the bird’s position for a bit, then let go.

The bird let out its digital battle cry, flew in a perfect arc, and destroyed every single pig on the screen. Sounds of the complete and utter destruction of the pigs and their fortresses of wood and stone emanated from the phone’s speakers, followed by sounds of victory. By now, all of us had gathered around Henry and were curiously looking over his shoulder—he had completed the level with all three stars.

“How did you do that?” I asked, awed.

“Nothing more than tactical strategy,” said Henry dismissively. “It’s very similar to the descriptions of the storming of various cities in the _Iliad_.”

Bunny looked at the screen, then at us clustered around Henry, and harrumphed. “Beginner’s luck.” He took the phone back and changed it to a higher level. “See if you can do THIS.”

Henry glanced at it, pulled the bird back—he seemed to be getting the hang of it—and perfectly replicated his previous achievement, launching the bird in a perfect arc so that it landed in the exact place to bring the pigs’ fortresses crashing down on top of them. As all the pigs were killed, Henry smirked, and the rest of us exchanged incredulous grins.

“New High Score,” Henry read, peering at the screen. “What does that mean?”

Bunny glared at him wordlessly, then took the phone back a final time and scrolled through the level select to the final available level before the grayed-out ones (which was still in World 1). “This is the level I’ve been stuck on,” he said. “If you can win _this_ one, I’ll eat my hat.”

“You’re not wearing a hat,” Francis pointed out.

“I’ll find a hat in one of these closets and eat it.”

“Please don’t,” said Francis, looking genuinely concerned.

Bunny rolled his eyes—“Honestly, you guys are so _literal_ ”—before turning back to Henry, who was staring at the screen, scrolling back and forth between the birds and the fortresses, his eyes narrowed in concentration. Finally, he slowly and deliberately pulled the bird back in its slingshot and, in one decisive motion, let it fly.

It was perfect. In one go, the bird was able to destroy everything on the screen—splintering wood, shattering stone, crushing pigs with their own creations. It was sublime in its pure destructive perfection.

Three stars and a “New High Score” badge filled the screen, and Bunny gaped as the rest of us cheered.

“This is actually quite enjoyable,” said Henry.

Bunny harrumphed. “Fine! If you’re so good at it—“ he thrust the phone at Henry— “here, by all means, take it. Be the goddamn Angry Birds champion. I’ll just be over here, I guess, eating these delicious finger sandwiches…” He took one from Francis’ plate in one deft motion.

“Hey!” said Francis.

Bunny ignored him. He already had the sandwich in his mouth and was chewing sulkily.

The rest of the afternoon was filled with the victorious squawks and caws of the Angry Birds—not out of any malicious intent from Henry, hut simply because he didn’t know how to turn the volume down. Occasionally, the silence was punctuated with a remark from him—“Look!” he exclaimed at one point. “I just discovered that when you press on the small blue bird, it splits into three smaller blue birds!”

“We know, Henry,” Bunny said, sulking.

“It’s just like Plato’s theory of the tripartite soul expressed in the _Republic_ …“

“WE KNOW, HENRY!"

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to The Secret History group chat on Tumblr for being the first to see this fic (in its inchoate outline form)—thanks especially to soladiscipulus, combe-ferres, and hamlet-hoe for their comments!
> 
> Also, thanks to [this site](https://www.iep.utm.edu/greekphi/) for supplying me with actual Ancient Greek philosophy to corroborate Henry's rants!


End file.
